The Christ Myth Theory

[dbz]

One issue I have with that is that the Talmud was written down from oral sources between 200 C.E. and 600 C.E. The passages dealing that are alleged to be dealing with Jesus are very likely to be a response to the gospels accusations about the Trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin

In other words, the Talmud is not any where near contemporary with the alleged events.

• "Christianity is Older Than We Think". lost-history.com.

It is often said that these Talmudic and Toledot stories are just rabbinic reactions to Christians, but it is very hard to imagine that some rabbis would read one of the gospels and decide to come up with this first century BCE narrative as a retort. Why put Jesus earlier in time and make Christianity older? Why would they leave out any trace of the pacifistic philosophy and apocalypticism and then expand on the “Escape to Egypt” story, putting it into a far more historical context? Clearly, story elements such as hiding Jesus’ body and the gardener motif are minor details far too deep within the fabric of the gospel narrative for Jewish satirists to pick up and elaborate on while at the same time ignoring all the far more important plot elements and theological positions from the Greek-written canonical gospels from the Bible.


Six Reasons Why the Talmudic Tradition that Jesus Lived in the First Century BCE is Older Than the Gospel Tradition

1) In Matthew 28:12, the Jewish chief priests and elders, after hearing the report from the Roman guards that two angels had come down and released Jesus from the tomb, conspire to devise a story about how Jesus’ disciples moved his body to trick everyone into thinking that Jesus rose from the dead and the Toledot story involves Yeshu’s betrayer, a gardener, moving his body to his garden, tricking the disciples into thinking Yeshu rose from the dead. The gospel could only be citing a Toledot or related story. The Toledot tradition that Jesus is buried in his betrayer's garden later caused the betrayer to become associated with a “Field of Blood”. The authors of Matthew 27:6 and Acts 1:18 then invented contradicting explanations for how this “Field of Blood” ended up associated with Judas. Tertullian references a Jewish belief in the early 200s that the betrayer had moved Jesus' body from his garden to stop the followers of Jesus from stepping on his lettuces, just as depicted in the Toledot (De Spetaculis 100.30.3; Mead 182).

2) In the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene confuses the gardener with Jesus as if they are twins who looked alike, which is a parallel to the fact that certain dualistic Gnostics like the Sethians and Cainites portrayed Judas as the “twin” of Jesus. The final editor of the Gospel of John appears to have been at particular pains to distinguish Judas Iscariot from Judas Thomas “not Iscariot” (the name Thomas meaning “the Twin”), like in 14:22. Although none of the Gnostic gospels describe Judas as a gardener, the fact that the Toledot identifies Judas with the gardener shows that the gospel scene of Mary Magdalene confusing Jesus for the gardener was inspired by the earlier motif that the “twin”/betrayer of Jesus was a gardener.

3) Biblical scholar Delbert Burkett, in his groundbreaking work, From Proto-Mark to Mark, posits the idea that the Synoptic gospels and Stephen's trial in Acts of the Apostles used a “Sanhedrin Trial Source”. Burkett points out that this lost source tradition portrayed Jesus as being executed by fellow Jews without Roman assistance and could possibly be related to Yeshu in the Talmud. Separating the “Sanhedrin Trial Source” from the gospel context also solves the problem of how the Sanhedrin could have been expected to be assembled at night since the Toledot context has Yeshu being captured and tried during the daytime. The tradition of execution by Jews also better fits with 1 Thessalonians 2:15 and Mara Bar Serapion. In the Gospel of Peter, Jesus is condemned to death by both Herod and Pilate, not individually, as is described in the gospels of Luke and John, but together at the same time, which is rather implausible historically. Even more strikingly, Jesus is crucified by “the people” without any mention of Roman assistance, after which they get worried about the sudden darkness that comes about because of the Biblical law about leaving a condemned criminal's body up all night. After Jesus dies, Roman soldiers do get involved to guard the body. In the book, The Cross That Spoke, John Dominic Crossan suggested there are interpolations in the text, and while he still believes that Herod and Pilate played a role in the earliest core document, which he calls the Cross Gospel, an execution carried out by the people and not soldiers suggests the earliest version of the apocryphal gospel story may have been set in the first century BCE when public executions would have been carried out by Jews.

4) In the Toledot stories, Yeshu disguises himself by wearing the same disguise as three hundred of his followers and so his betrayer signals which one is Yeshu is by bowing at him. In the gospel stories, the elders need Judas to signal undisguised and easily-recognizable Jesus among a few disciples using a kiss because it is dark. The story element in which a sign by a traitor is necessary to identify Jesus makes more sense in the context of the Toledot story of Yeshu disguising himself (Zindler 390n).

5) Gospel of Thomas says that there were 24 prophets, not 12 disciples, who spoke about Jesus (Saying 52). A suggestion made by Jesus Seminar scholar Robert Funk is that this refers to the 24 books of the Old Testament, but the books are not divided by one prophet per book. More likely it refers to the 12 apostles mentioned in the New Testament plus 12 earlier apostles from the first century BCE mentioned in the Toledot as “bad offspring of foul ravens”, who came and taught after Yeshu’s five disciples were killed.

6) In Mark 8:19-21, Jesus asks the disciples the exact numbers involved when he broke 5 loaves for 5,000 people, leaving behind 12 baskets, and then broke 7 loaves for 4,000 people, leaving behind 7 baskets. By asking his disciples to focus on the exact numbers, the gospel author presents his readers with a specific numerological puzzle. The number 12 presumably refers to the 12 apostles. The number 7 more than likely refers to the 7 Grecian Jewish “table waiters” of Acts 6:5 that church historians would later dub the Seven Deacons. This would leave another group of five who would have needed to appear before the 12 apostles, which can only be the 5 disciples of Yeshu from the Talmud.

Many Biblical scholars have attempted to assume that the Greek gospels were based on earlier Aramaic gospels. Other Biblical scholars have criticized this assumption because there is little to no proof. Yet the supreme irony is that there always were Aramaic writings about Jesus, reasonably early and available in the most popular Jewish theological work after the Bible, and yet no leading New Testament scholar of the twentieth century ever considered analyzing them beyond a superficial glance for historical purposes. Even among Talmudic scholars and Biblical scholars who advocate looking for a more “Jewish” Jesus, the Talmud and Toledot are in general silently dismissed. Many scholars, including Zindler, point to the fact that there are variations of the text that leave out the name of Yeshu, indicating it was inserted in later. However, there is a long Jewish tradition of leaving out the name of a heretic or an enemy so that his name would vanish from history. Whether the name was inserted or taken out, there were some ancient Jews who knowingly dated Jesus to the first century BCE.

The fact that almost no Talmudic scholars accept the Yeshu statements to relate to the historical Jesus, does tarnish the credibility of a historical Jesus based on the Talmud and Toledot. But this does not appear to have been the case before modern times. The 1887 book, Medieval Jewish Chronicles, by Adolph Neubaueri, quotes a twelfth-century Spanish historian named Abraham ben Daud as saying not some but all the Jewish history writers of the time identified Jesus as the student of Joshua ben Perachiah and said that he lived during the time of Alexander Jannaeus. The reason this is not the case today can be attributed not to an accident of history but a purposeful censorship by the Roman Catholic Church. Along with censorship, Christian repression also led many Jewish copyists to self-censor, and so many copies of the Talmud have the passages missing. Things were not any better when Martin Luther got his hands on the story, as he used it to help slander Jews with anti-Semitic tracts. Many Christians, including Martin Luther, used the Toledot story to stir up anti-Semitism, typically leaving out the part about Yeshu living in a different century. It should perhaps be no surprise then that Judaism before the late twentieth century had evolved into a religion with collective amnesia when it came to Jesus.

Indicative of the suffocating nature of the censorship, there were notes discovered hidden within two copies of the Toledot, originally written in Slavic Hebrew and then translated into German, that warns its Jewish readers that because of the Christian ban on the Toledot, it was to be copied only by hand and never printed. Neither should it be read in front of Christians or anyone frivolous enough to gossip about it. Rabbinic writings from the 1100s to 1900s confirm that the Talmud and Toledot were censored by the Church to keep Christians from learning about this other Jesus. So, as sensationalist as it sounds, the story of the first century BCE Jesus is a full-on Da Vinci Code-style conspiracy theory. That does not necessarily make it historically true. Even if the Talmudic tradition is earlier, Jewish Talmudists could possibly have adopted one historically untrue myth only to have it repressed by another historically untrue myth. I will go more into what I think is historically true of the first century BCE Jesus later. But it does go to show that we should not take the unpopularity of an idea on its face if there had to be a lot of repression to make the idea unpopular.

 

[Jarhyn]

One issue I have with that is that the Talmud was written down from oral sources between 200 C.E. and 600 C.E. The passages dealing that are alleged to be dealing with Jesus are very likely to be a response to the gospels accusations about the Trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin

In other words, the Talmud is not any where near contemporary with the alleged events.

• "Christianity is Older Than We Think". lost-history.com.

It is often said that these Talmudic and Toledot stories are just rabbinic reactions to Christians, but it is very hard to imagine that some rabbis would read one of the gospels and decide to come up with this first century BCE narrative as a retort. Why put Jesus earlier in time and make Christianity older? Why would they leave out any trace of the pacifistic philosophy and apocalypticism and then expand on the “Escape to Egypt” story, putting it into a far more historical context? Clearly, story elements such as hiding Jesus’ body and the gardener motif are minor details far too deep within the fabric of the gospel narrative for Jewish satirists to pick up and elaborate on while at the same time ignoring all the far more important plot elements and theological positions from the Greek-written canonical gospels from the Bible.


Six Reasons Why the Talmudic Tradition that Jesus Lived in the First Century BCE is Older Than the Gospel Tradition

1) In Matthew 28:12, the Jewish chief priests and elders, after hearing the report from the Roman guards that two angels had come down and released Jesus from the tomb, conspire to devise a story about how Jesus’ disciples moved his body to trick everyone into thinking that Jesus rose from the dead and the Toledot story involves Yeshu’s betrayer, a gardener, moving his body to his garden, tricking the disciples into thinking Yeshu rose from the dead. The gospel could only be citing a Toledot or related story. The Toledot tradition that Jesus is buried in his betrayer's garden later caused the betrayer to become associated with a “Field of Blood”. The authors of Matthew 27:6 and Acts 1:18 then invented contradicting explanations for how this “Field of Blood” ended up associated with Judas. Tertullian references a Jewish belief in the early 200s that the betrayer had moved Jesus' body from his garden to stop the followers of Jesus from stepping on his lettuces, just as depicted in the Toledot (De Spetaculis 100.30.3; Mead 182).

2) In the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene confuses the gardener with Jesus as if they are twins who looked alike, which is a parallel to the fact that certain dualistic Gnostics like the Sethians and Cainites portrayed Judas as the “twin” of Jesus. The final editor of the Gospel of John appears to have been at particular pains to distinguish Judas Iscariot from Judas Thomas “not Iscariot” (the name Thomas meaning “the Twin”), like in 14:22. Although none of the Gnostic gospels describe Judas as a gardener, the fact that the Toledot identifies Judas with the gardener shows that the gospel scene of Mary Magdalene confusing Jesus for the gardener was inspired by the earlier motif that the “twin”/betrayer of Jesus was a gardener.

3) Biblical scholar Delbert Burkett, in his groundbreaking work, From Proto-Mark to Mark, posits the idea that the Synoptic gospels and Stephen's trial in Acts of the Apostles used a “Sanhedrin Trial Source”. Burkett points out that this lost source tradition portrayed Jesus as being executed by fellow Jews without Roman assistance and could possibly be related to Yeshu in the Talmud. Separating the “Sanhedrin Trial Source” from the gospel context also solves the problem of how the Sanhedrin could have been expected to be assembled at night since the Toledot context has Yeshu being captured and tried during the daytime. The tradition of execution by Jews also better fits with 1 Thessalonians 2:15 and Mara Bar Serapion. In the Gospel of Peter, Jesus is condemned to death by both Herod and Pilate, not individually, as is described in the gospels of Luke and John, but together at the same time, which is rather implausible historically. Even more strikingly, Jesus is crucified by “the people” without any mention of Roman assistance, after which they get worried about the sudden darkness that comes about because of the Biblical law about leaving a condemned criminal's body up all night. After Jesus dies, Roman soldiers do get involved to guard the body. In the book, The Cross That Spoke, John Dominic Crossan suggested there are interpolations in the text, and while he still believes that Herod and Pilate played a role in the earliest core document, which he calls the Cross Gospel, an execution carried out by the people and not soldiers suggests the earliest version of the apocryphal gospel story may have been set in the first century BCE when public executions would have been carried out by Jews.

4) In the Toledot stories, Yeshu disguises himself by wearing the same disguise as three hundred of his followers and so his betrayer signals which one is Yeshu is by bowing at him. In the gospel stories, the elders need Judas to signal undisguised and easily-recognizable Jesus among a few disciples using a kiss because it is dark. The story element in which a sign by a traitor is necessary to identify Jesus makes more sense in the context of the Toledot story of Yeshu disguising himself (Zindler 390n).

5) Gospel of Thomas says that there were 24 prophets, not 12 disciples, who spoke about Jesus (Saying 52). A suggestion made by Jesus Seminar scholar Robert Funk is that this refers to the 24 books of the Old Testament, but the books are not divided by one prophet per book. More likely it refers to the 12 apostles mentioned in the New Testament plus 12 earlier apostles from the first century BCE mentioned in the Toledot as “bad offspring of foul ravens”, who came and taught after Yeshu’s five disciples were killed.

6) In Mark 8:19-21, Jesus asks the disciples the exact numbers involved when he broke 5 loaves for 5,000 people, leaving behind 12 baskets, and then broke 7 loaves for 4,000 people, leaving behind 7 baskets. By asking his disciples to focus on the exact numbers, the gospel author presents his readers with a specific numerological puzzle. The number 12 presumably refers to the 12 apostles. The number 7 more than likely refers to the 7 Grecian Jewish “table waiters” of Acts 6:5 that church historians would later dub the Seven Deacons. This would leave another group of five who would have needed to appear before the 12 apostles, which can only be the 5 disciples of Yeshu from the Talmud.

Many Biblical scholars have attempted to assume that the Greek gospels were based on earlier Aramaic gospels. Other Biblical scholars have criticized this assumption because there is little to no proof. Yet the supreme irony is that there always were Aramaic writings about Jesus, reasonably early and available in the most popular Jewish theological work after the Bible, and yet no leading New Testament scholar of the twentieth century ever considered analyzing them beyond a superficial glance for historical purposes. Even among Talmudic scholars and Biblical scholars who advocate looking for a more “Jewish” Jesus, the Talmud and Toledot are in general silently dismissed. Many scholars, including Zindler, point to the fact that there are variations of the text that leave out the name of Yeshu, indicating it was inserted in later. However, there is a long Jewish tradition of leaving out the name of a heretic or an enemy so that his name would vanish from history. Whether the name was inserted or taken out, there were some ancient Jews who knowingly dated Jesus to the first century BCE.

The fact that almost no Talmudic scholars accept the Yeshu statements to relate to the historical Jesus, does tarnish the credibility of a historical Jesus based on the Talmud and Toledot. But this does not appear to have been the case before modern times. The 1887 book, Medieval Jewish Chronicles, by Adolph Neubaueri, quotes a twelfth-century Spanish historian named Abraham ben Daud as saying not some but all the Jewish history writers of the time identified Jesus as the student of Joshua ben Perachiah and said that he lived during the time of Alexander Jannaeus. The reason this is not the case today can be attributed not to an accident of history but a purposeful censorship by the Roman Catholic Church. Along with censorship, Christian repression also led many Jewish copyists to self-censor, and so many copies of the Talmud have the passages missing. Things were not any better when Martin Luther got his hands on the story, as he used it to help slander Jews with anti-Semitic tracts. Many Christians, including Martin Luther, used the Toledot story to stir up anti-Semitism, typically leaving out the part about Yeshu living in a different century. It should perhaps be no surprise then that Judaism before the late twentieth century had evolved into a religion with collective amnesia when it came to Jesus.

Indicative of the suffocating nature of the censorship, there were notes discovered hidden within two copies of the Toledot, originally written in Slavic Hebrew and then translated into German, that warns its Jewish readers that because of the Christian ban on the Toledot, it was to be copied only by hand and never printed. Neither should it be read in front of Christians or anyone frivolous enough to gossip about it. Rabbinic writings from the 1100s to 1900s confirm that the Talmud and Toledot were censored by the Church to keep Christians from learning about this other Jesus. So, as sensationalist as it sounds, the story of the first century BCE Jesus is a full-on Da Vinci Code-style conspiracy theory. That does not necessarily make it historically true. Even if the Talmudic tradition is earlier, Jewish Talmudists could possibly have adopted one historically untrue myth only to have it repressed by another historically untrue myth. I will go more into what I think is historically true of the first century BCE Jesus later. But it does go to show that we should not take the unpopularity of an idea on its face if there had to be a lot of repression to make the idea unpopular.

I'll have to read the Toledot, then.

I would say it's as possible as anything else that it is an interpolation.

Still, the Talmudic verses recorded 200ce agree fairly well with what I understand so far?

I'm going to read it some time.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If you would like to edit in what you believe to be the correct translated in the quoted sections, this is exactly the reason I posted it: so we can do an exchange of markup on the texts.

Just put "ha-Notzri" after "Jeshu" in the passages that I have listed.

One issue I have with that is that the Talmud was written down from oral sources between 200 C.E. and 600 C.E. The passages dealing that are alleged to be dealing with Jesus are very likely to be a response to the gospels accusations about the Trial of Jesus before the Sanhedre

In other words, the Talmud is not any where near contemporary with the alleged events.

Jesus's trial and passion are identical to another rather contemporaneous account of another person, as if the account was plagiarized. But I cannot find the source and provide a link. It was a long time ago. Sorry.

 

[Swammerdami]

@ dbz, or anyone else in the thread professing mythicism:

Do you agree with the SPECIFIC model that Jarhyn proposed? Or would you prefer to focus attention on a different SPECIFIC model?

I think that Jarhyn — Thanks again, J! — has shown what I was looking for. But based on some of the posts I'll guess that others would prefer a very different model. Should we get TWO specific models on the table?

I hope it is finally clear what I've been asking for. I do NOT want a list of possibilities; I do NOT want argumentation; I do NOT want cites or quotes. I just want the mythicist to imagine ONE likely scenario and answer VERY SIMPLY, four simple questions about four brief documentary extracts.

Will anyone but Jarhyn accept this challenge?

 

[Swammerdami]

Some historians specialize in distinguishing fact from fiction by analyzing narrative detail, focus, tone and style. Here are two opinions:

I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this [gospel] text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage…or else, some unknown [ancient] writer…without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic realistic narrative.

The Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable that the inventor would be more astonishing than the hero.

PLEASE note that I am NOT asserting the opinions of Lewis and Rousseau are correct. It would be interesting to hear opposite opinions from other experts.

What I AM suggesting is that IF we could agree, with a probability measure, on whether the Gospels read as fact or fiction, it would be another factor in the giant Bayesian equation a competent statistician might imagine. The fact that Richard Carrier makes, at best, binary decisions about such matters demonstrates the absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy of his "method."

 

[Jarhyn]

@ dbz, or anyone else in the thread professing mythicism:

Do you agree with the SPECIFIC model that Jarhyn proposed? Or would you prefer to focus attention on a different SPECIFIC model?

I think that Jarhyn — Thanks again, J! — has shown what I was looking for. But based on some of the posts I;ll guess that others would prefer a completely different model. Should we get TWO specific models on the table?

I hope it is finally clear what I've been asking for. I do NOT want a list of possibilities; I do NOT want argumentation; I do NOT want cites or quotes. I just want the mythicist to imagine ONE likely scenario and answer VERY SIMPLY, four simple questions about four brief documentary extracts.

Will anyone but Jarhyn accept this challenge?

I'll accept it again a second time.

~70bce, someone named "Jesus the Nazarene" as per Talmudic sources was born. In the intervening years Chrestus was born, lived, and died, and added to the tale, which maintains Chrestus is the return of the Nazarene. Chrestus has a few more apostles of his own, following the Nazarene's 5.

Paul unifies these traditions and churches specifically around Chrestus, some 60 years after. James would then be Chrestus's brother, not the Nazarene's, and Chrestus is the second layer of amalgamation instead.

Fast forward a few more Jesuses, another 100 years, and someone in the cult is curious about what actually happened, Mark, and setting the record straight. They have available to them all the histories of notable scholars, access to the cult, and a good deal of other things besides, the interest perhaps lit by

The difference between this is largely just "which Jesus happened first?"

The Nazarene is set in the Talmud as -70-+170 and Toledot has it pinned closer to -70.

Depending on the Toledot, there may have been a more-or-less historic  kernel to the Jesus story and cult, but Amalgamism assumes there had been a "first" regardless.

 

[dbz]

The fact that Richard Carrier makes, at best, binary decisions about such matters demonstrates the absurdity and intellectual bankruptcy of his "method."

@Swammerdami, Do you make the same claim about "method" for:

• Wallach, Efraim (January 2018). "Bayesian representation of a prolonged archaeological debate". Synthese. 195 (1): 401–431. doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1224-8.

Abstract

This article examines the effect of material evidence upon historiographic hypotheses. Through a series of successive Bayesian conditionalizations, I analyze the extended competition among several hypotheses that offered different accounts of the transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Palestine and in particular to the “emergence of Israel”. The model reconstructs, with low sensitivity to initial assumptions, the actual outcomes including a complete alteration of the scientific consensus. Several known issues of Bayesian confirmation, including the problem of old evidence, the introduction and confirmation of novel theories and the sensitivity of convergence to uncertain and disputed evidence are discussed in relation to the model’s result and the actual historical process. The most important result is that convergence of probabilities and of scientific opinion is indeed possible when advocates of rival hypotheses hold similar judgment about the factual content of evidence, even if they differ sharply in their historiographic interpretation. This speaks against the contention that understanding of present remains is so irrevocably biased by theoretical and cultural presumptions as to make an objective assessment impossible.

Cf. Wallach, Efraim (January 2021). "Historiographic narratives and empirical evidence: a case study". Synthese. 198 (1): 801–821. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-02065-w.

 

[Swammerdami]

@ Jarhyn — Is your claim that an earlier Jesus of Nazareth existed based on a supposed equivalence between "Nazarene" and "ha-Notzri"? Do you have a good cite for that equivalence? There is also a word like "Nazorite" (Numbers 6, Judges 13; or "Nazorean"?) unrelated to the place-name "Nazareth" — does that enter into this?

Returning to the "Chrestus" whose dates are similar to those alleged for Jesus of the Gospels — did he have Yeshu as a fore-name? Was he also condemned to death?


@ dbz — I think I've made clear that I am not opposed to Bayesian analysis; I just think it tricky to apply correctly for complex problems. I don't know whether I'd have the time or talent to study and appraise the paper you link to, but I am not going to spend 39,95 € for the paper. Do you have a way to send it to me?

 

[Swammerdami]

dbz links to an article about the transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Palestine and in particular to the “emergence of Israel” This is a fascinating topic, as is the earliest emergence of the Jewish religion. Some towns in Canaan 3000 years ago DID eat pig and some did NOT. The Amarna Letters written 3350 years ago also shed much light.

Very old Egyptian writing speaks of "Yahweh in the land of the Shasu", apparently near the land of the Edomites. Egyptian texts write about the "Apiru", a word meaning "mercenary/bandit' which is cognate to "Hebrew."

I would love to read a thread where experts discuss these topics.

 

[Jarhyn]

@ Jarhyn — Is your claim that an earlier Jesus of Nazareth existed based on a supposed equivalence between "Nazarene" and "ha-Notzri"? Do you have a good cite for that equivalence? There is also a word like "Nazorite" (Numbers 6, Judges 13; or "Nazorean"?) unrelated to the place-name "Nazareth" — does that enter into this?

Returning to the "Chrestus" whose dates are similar to those alleged for Jesus of the Gospels — did he have Yeshu as a fore-name? Was he also condemned to death?


@ dbz — I think I've made clear that I am not opposed to Bayesian analysis; I just think it tricky to apply correctly for complex problems. I don't know whether I'd have the time or talent to study and appraise the paper you link to, but I am not going to spend 39,95 € for the paper. Do you have a way to send it to me?

I expect the historical record is rather slight on discussion of Chrestus so it's unclear.

Paul is the most prolific source on Chrestus, and I expect his later involvement in the groups involved in fires in Rome.

Everything I know about Chrestus is in this thread and in the letters of Paul, and Paul wasn't even a contemporary to Chrestus himself, but came notably later.

The connections I'm drawing to "the Nazarene" are specifically surrounding Yeshu Ben Pandera/Ben Stada/Ben Miriam" discussed extensively on the Talmud, five disciples, generally branded a heretic, and used repeatedly as a character to denote someone who seems to have suffered the fate of Socrates in questioning too many things too suddenly.

I do not purport as to which came first, the Gospel or the Toledot, though for all we know they could have came about as competing narratives about the same essential "Kernel" character at the same time.

The gospel came later than the Talmudic sources, though it's unclear whether Yeshu of the Toledot was informed by the Talmud, or the Talmud was informed by the Toledot.

It was probably some of A and some of B, though it's unclear why a whole book would be devoted to discussing a heretic, and then be held among Jews, unless it bespoke an enduring cult.

 

[Jarhyn]

@ Jarhyn — Is your claim that an earlier Jesus of Nazareth existed based on a supposed equivalence between "Nazarene" and "ha-Notzri"? Do you have a good cite for that equivalence? There is also a word like "Nazorite" (Numbers 6, Judges 13; or "Nazorean"?) unrelated to the place-name "Nazareth" — does that enter into this?

Returning to the "Chrestus" whose dates are similar to those alleged for Jesus of the Gospels — did he have Yeshu as a fore-name? Was he also condemned to death?


@ dbz — I think I've made clear that I am not opposed to Bayesian analysis; I just think it tricky to apply correctly for complex problems. I don't know whether I'd have the time or talent to study and appraise the paper you link to, but I am not going to spend 39,95 € for the paper. Do you have a way to send it to me?

I expect the historical record is rather slight on discussion of Chrestus so it's unclear.

Paul is the most prolific source on Chrestus, and I expect his later involvement in the groups involved in fires in Rome.

Everything I know about Chrestus is in this thread and in the letters of Paul, and Paul wasn't even a contemporary to Chrestus himself, but came notably later.

The connections I'm drawing to "the Nazarene" are specifically surrounding Yeshu Ben Pandera/Ben Stada/Ben Miriam" discussed extensively on the Talmud, five disciples, generally branded a heretic, and used repeatedly as a character to denote someone who seems to have suffered the fate of Socrates in questioning too many things too suddenly.

I do not purport as to which came first, the Gospel or the Toledot, though for all we know they could have came about as competing narratives about the same essential "Kernel" character at the same time.

The gospel came later than the Talmudic sources, though it's unclear whether Yeshu of the Toledot was informed by the Talmud, or the Talmud was informed by the Toledot.

It was probably some of A and some of B, though it's unclear why a whole book would be devoted to discussing a heretic, and then be held among Jews, unless it bespoke an enduring cult.

I downloaded and am reading on the Toledot and it's history now.

In the version I am reading, dates for various aspects of the Toledot tradition for back as far as 150, earlier in fact than the gospels, according to Justin Martyr and his discussion about the smear campaign.

I would almost expect that the emergence of the Toledot tradition is in fact the impetus for the creation of GMark some years later

 

[dbz]

I would almost expect that the emergence of the Toledot tradition is in fact the impetus for the creation of GMark some years later

• "Christianity is Older Than We Think". lost-history.com.

[T]he Talmud refers to Christians as the “Notzi”, or Nazarenes, and the Bible and Church Fathers confirm that this was the pre-Christian designation for a follower of Jesus, this story may represent part of a historical reasoning for the religious conflict between Pharisee and Nazarene. The “magic” attributed to Yeshu may have included unorthodox Egyptian healing techniques or rituals. The miracle stories in the first three gospels, the Synoptic gospels, likewise reflect a tradition of ritualistic healing measures not found in the Old Testament, which the Pharisees and elders constantly lodge theological complaints against. It is only much later, when Acts of the Apostles is written, that a distinction is made between the miracles of Jesus and the trickster magic of the supposed “fountainhead” of the heretical Gnostic mysteries, Simon Magus

 

[Politesse]

I would almost expect that the emergence of the Toledot tradition is in fact the impetus for the creation of GMark some years later

• "Christianity is Older Than We Think". lost-history.com.

[T]he Talmud refers to Christians as the “Notzi”, or Nazarenes, and the Bible and Church Fathers confirm that this was the pre-Christian designation for a follower of Jesus, this story may represent part of a historical reasoning for the religious conflict between Pharisee and Nazarene. The “magic” attributed to Yeshu may have included unorthodox Egyptian healing techniques or rituals. The miracle stories in the first three gospels, the Synoptic gospels, likewise reflect a tradition of ritualistic healing measures not found in the Old Testament, which the Pharisees and elders constantly lodge theological complaints against. It is only much later, when Acts of the Apostles is written, that a distinction is made between the miracles of Jesus and the trickster magic of the supposed “fountainhead” of the heretical Gnostic mysteries, Simon Magus

Another funny case of historicists asserting that dozens of gospels and a handful of extra-Biblical references are by no means sufficient evidence that Jesus existed, but in pursuit of their goals, accepting other portrayals of historical "truth" on the basis of little or no evidence at all. To wit, we know next to nothing about the Nazarene sect with any certainty, and the few early references we do have are both mostly in the Bible (supposedly not a source of historical information, when we ask in other contexts) and seemingly contradicting each other in content. The Nazarenes are themselves an enormous mystery, and can constitute firm evidence of little except that 2nd century religious politics were complicated and yet unknown to us. To say nothing of starting an article by citing the opinion of a notorious treasure hound and media darling with no archaeological credentials...

I wouldn't mind the whole conspiracy theory game so much if it didn't encourage so much misinformation, and the popularization of poor historical methods and reasoning.

 

[Swammerdami]

First, by Toledot I assume you mean Toledot Yeshu. For my purpose I have no interest in Yeshus who thrived during or after the late 1st century. Some of the Jewish references cited are 2nd- or even 3rd-century texts intended as rebuttals to the Gospels. The Toledot Yeshu is a very late document whose earliest antecedent is itself 2nd- or 3rd-century polemic. If there was an historic Jesus ben Panthera, he probably thrived 2nd century. But many/most sources treat Yeshu ben Panthera/Stada, if it describes a pre-2nd century person at all, as a deprecatory reference to Jesus the Nazarene.

Speaking of which, is there ANY cite for a Nazareth reference prior to Gospels/Acts?

 Toledot Yeshu shows various "versions", e.g. Summary of Wagenseil version — surely the amalgamists don't claim that ALL these versions, devised a millennium AFTER Pontius Pilate, are correct?

There are no undisputed examples of any Aramaic or Hebrew text where Yeshu refers to anyone else than Jesus.

. . . The identification of Jesus with any number of individuals named Yeshu has numerous problems, as most of the individuals are said to have lived in time periods far detached from that of Jesus; Yeshu the sorcerer is noted for being executed by the Hasmonean government which lost legal authority in 63 BC, Yeshu the student [of Yehoshua ben Perachiah] is described being among the Pharisees who returned to Israel from Egypt in 74 BC,[3][4][5] and Yeshu ben Pandera/ben Stada's stepfather is noted as speaking with Rabbi Akiva shortly before the rabbi's execution, an event which occurred in c. 134 AD.[6][7][8] These events would place the lifetime of any Yeshu decades before or after the birth and death of Jesus.
. . .
Boyarin has suggested that this was the Jewish version of the Br'er Rabbit approach to domination, which he contrasts to the strategy of many early Christians, who proclaim their beliefs in spite of the consequences (i.e. martyrdom). Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the Governor interpreted him to be referring to the Governor himself, and freed the rabbi. According to them the account also reveals that there was greater contact between Christians and Jews in the 2nd century than commonly believed. They view the account of the teaching of Yeshu as an attempt to mock Christianity.
. . .
An indirect witness to the Christian condemnation of the book can be found in one manuscript of the Toledot, which has this cautionary note in its introduction:

[This booklet] should be shown only to people of discretion, for one never knows what the morrow may bring. [...] I copied it from three different pamphlets from three different countries, not just one, The contents of all these pamphlets were identical, except that I wrote it in the language of prudence [- namely, Hebrew, because Gentiles do not understand it].[39]

Martin Luther quoted the Toledot (evidently the Strassburg version) at length in his general condemnation of Jews . . .

2nd century writings are relevant to my questions only if they involve the rewriting of Paul, Josephus or Tacitus. Or cite relevant Jewish documents which predate Josephus of which there are, iiuc, ZERO.

You guys have lost me with all your alternate Jesuses. Setting aside the alleged "Chrestus" whose dates resembled those of the Nazarene, I see Yeshu the sorcerer and Yeshu the student. (See above.) Are these not the same person, and do they not apparently date to the 2nd century BC? What am I missing? Who am I missing?

 

[dbz]

~70bce, someone named "Jesus the Nazarene" as per Talmudic sources was born. In the intervening years Chrestus was born, lived, and died, and added to the tale, which maintains Chrestus is the return of the Nazarene. Chrestus has a few more apostles of his own, following the Nazarene's 5.

Paul unifies these traditions and churches specifically around Chrestus, some 60 years after. James would then be Chrestus's brother, not the Nazarene's, and Chrestus is the second layer of amalgamation instead.

Fast forward a few more Jesuses, another 100 years, and someone in the cult is curious about what actually happened, Mark, and setting the record straight. They have available to them all the histories of notable scholars, access to the cult, and a good deal of other things besides, the interest perhaps lit by

• [Yeshu ha-Notsri as the founder of Christianity] AND [The Prophet Yeshu]

Salm, René (05/06/2020). "Yeshu ha-Notsri as the actual founder of Christianity–Pt. 1: Introduction". Mythicist Papers.
[. . .]
(07/13/2020) Pt. 15: Dositheus = John = Jesus = Simon Magus

Salm, René (07/19/2020). "The prophet Yeshu—Pt. 1: General considerations". Mythicist Papers.
[. . .]
(10/24/2020) Pt.12—Family ties (and a correction)

• Salm, René. "A review…" (25 March 2022). Mythicist Papers.​

(1) John (Yochanan or Yehonathan) the Hasmonean was a renegade Pharisee of royal lineage.

(2) Ca. 86 BCE, when Alexander Janneus began an intense pogrom against the Pharisees, the young John fled to Egypt with his mentor, Joshua ben Perachiah.

(3) While in exile in Alexandria, John came under Buddhist influence. He abandoned his Jewish religion and became a gnostic, one who believes that the goal of man is to find understanding, “enlightenment.”

(4) John returned to Palestine after the death of Janneus (76 BCE) and went to Samaria, where he had more freedom to preach. He taught his subversive new religion which essentially entailed the overthrow of Judaism.

(5) For his followers, the gnosticism of Yeshu/Buddhism was considered arcane, ‘higher’ wisdom. In Hebrew, the higher wisdom was associated with the Semitic root NTsR (BDB 666) = “secret things” (Isa 48:6), also: “watch, guard, keep, protect.” This Semitic root has an august and ancient pedigree going back even to Akkadian times (ca. 2000 BCE), when such higher wisdom was already venerated, and when secret gnosis was symbolized by “Water.”

(6) Perhaps already during his ministry, and certainly after John’s execution by the Pharisaic Sanhedrin (ca. 65 BCE), the gnostic followers of John dubbed him “John the Baptist.” For them, the acquisition of gnosis ( = enlightenment) was symbolized by the dipping into water (baptism).

(7) The prophet was also known as “Yeshua” (“Savior”) for showing the way to Truth, and ha-Notsri (< NTsR), “the One with Secret Wisdom.” Thus, Yeshu ha-Notsri = Jesus the Nazarene = John the Baptist.

(8) An early gnostic offshoot of the early Jesus followers called themselves “those with secret wisdom”—Mandeans ( < manda = “knowledge”). They called their teachers/leaders Natsraiia (Nazarenes < NTsR), holy “Keepers of secret knowledge” (Drower, Mandaic Dictionary p. 306). This meaning was known to the markan evangelist, who at 1:24 defines “Nazarene” for the reader: “the holy one of God.”

(9) The original theology of Christianity was a philosophy of gnosis: understanding saves.

(10) The (originally Hebrew) Natsarenes embraced a severe, world-denying, ascetic, and encratite way of life directed at personal spiritual liberation through gnosis. Aspects of this are found both in the Dead Sea Sect (in which Yeshu is implicated—though negatively) and in the Therapeutae of Alexandria.

(11) Simon Magus (the “Standing One” and the “Great Power”) was probably a personification of the spiritual Jesus that indwells the saint (Stage II christology).

(12) The ascetic way to gnosis was too difficult for ordinary people who wished to accommodate to family life, to society, and to the ethos of gentile Hellenism. Thus a cultural and religious split developed in the Christian fellowships: Hellenists vs. Hebrews (Acts 6:1-6).

(13) About 100 CE Christians were already in Asia Minor in considerable numbers (cf. Pliny’s letter to Trajan). Their theology had developed from the pure gnostic liberation (Stage I) into a theology where the spirit of God, Jesus (“Savior”) enters into the saint and ensures salvation (Stage II). John was now venerated as the Christ, “the anointed one,” messiah. The prophet was, however, emphatically not divine (cf. the Gospel of Barnabas). Anyone could possess “the Jesus,” and thus there were many “Jesuses.”

(14) The ‘Hellenists’ revolted against the Hebrews towards the middle of the second century. They overthrew the gnostic theology with a new savior, Jesus the privileged Son of God, in whom all must believe in order to be saved.

(15) The first Hellenist gospel, the Gospel of Mark, is adoptionist: Jesus receives the spirit of God at baptism (Mk 1:10; Stage II). Due to his ability to work miracles, Jesus is somewhere between human and divine.

(16) In GMk Jesus hails from Capernaum (Mk 3:31; 9:33; etc.—Except for the interpolation at 1:9, “Nazareth” is not mentioned once in this gospel). Echoes of this first canonical gospel stratum can be detected in the writings of both Irenaeus and Tertullian.

(17) The Hellenists rejected the concept of the gnostic Nazarene, “the holy keeper of secret knowledge” (point 8 above). They redefined “Nazarene” by making it an inhabitant of a mythical town called “Nazareth.” Their savior, Jesus, now came from Nazareth (Mt 2:23).

(18) However, Jesus hailing from Nazareth caused problems: it now conflicted with the older tradition of his coming from Capernaum. Therefore, the Catholics interpolated “Nazareth” into the verse Mk 1:9. More importantly, the problem that the messiah must hail from Bethlehem was finessed by Matthew at 2:23 and then by Luke via the census of Emperor Augustus.

(19) Because GMt and GLk are dependent on GMk, a great deal of Jesus’ activity takes place according to the first gospel stratum—by the sea and in Capernaum. So, it certainly seemed that Jesus’ home was Capernaum (as in GMk). Matthew solved the dilemma by having Jesus’ family move (relocate its hometown) from Nazareth to Capernaum (Mt 4:13) and he also introduces a curse on Capernaum (Mt 11:23). The evangelist Luke took a different strategy—he pointedly denies that Capernaum is Jesus’ hometown (despite appearances) and emphasizes Nazareth via the passage 4:16-30, and he also retains the curse on Capernaum (Lk 10:15). These complications were necessary so that Nazareth could be (at some point) Jesus’ home, and all this was to avoid the original gnostic meaning of “Nazarene.”

(20) The new gospels, which were non-gnostic, were so astonishing to the Christian fellowships that they immediately caused a split: Catholics vs. gnostics. The latter were dubbed “Marcionites”—those who believe in a God above/beyond the world (that is: immaterialists, gnostics).

(21) In order to propagate their new theology of belief in the saving cross of Jesus of Nazareth, the Catholics penned the epistles of “Paul.” They made Paul into a figure whose activity took place during the apostolic generation.

(22) There was a ‘Watch and Wait’ period in the second half of II CE, when the canonical gospels and Pauline epistles were penned. This was a period of great creativity and also of indecision, when no one was certain (a) how history would play out, (b) which gospel would be favored, or (c) which version of the new “Jesus” would be successful. And there were several different Jesuses to choose from: the human Jesus (GMk); the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary (GMk and GLk); and the Son of God pre-existent from the beginning of the world (GJn).

• "SITEMAP | Mythicist Papers"
• "A New Account of Christian Origins". Mythicist Papers

Salm, René (12/09/2021). "John the Baptist in Josephus—Pt. 1". Mythicist Papers.
[. . .]
(06/30/2022) The infancy narratives–conclusion

 

[Swammerdami]

It almost seems like it is the mythicists who are myth makers! Yeshu ben Panthera/Stada is probably a derogatory reference to the Nazarene? Make him a different Jesus! Place him chronologically wherever convenient! and so on.

But let's focus on the equations "of Nazareth" == "Nazorean" == "ha-Notzri." How confident can we be about these "equivalences"? There is extra-Biblical mention of a town of Nazareth circa 65 AD, so can we at least lay the non-existence bugaboo to rest?

~70bce, someone named "Jesus the Nazarene" as per Talmudic sources was born.

Cite? Do you mean "Yeshua ha-Notzri"? Did you not just replace another word with "Nazarene"? Is such a textual substitution appropriate?

(8) They called their teachers/leaders Natsraiia (Nazarenes < NTsR), holy “Keepers of secret knowledge” (Drower, Mandaic Dictionary p. 306). This meaning was known to the markan evangelist, who at 1:24 defines “Nazarene” for the reader: “the holy one of God.”conclusion

I think this is the 3rd or 4th distinct etymology for "Nazorean" I've seen. Many scholars treat it as just an early name for Christians, i.e. followers of the Nazarene. Is this too prosaic?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all agree that Jesus came from a town named Nazareth. (Admittedly Matthew places him there to fulfill some prophecy, as he did with Bethlehem — that does give me pause.) I notice you didn't bother to write out Mark 1:24 which is, according to you, a definition. "I ate a red apple; it had a worm." Does this sentence define "red" to be "wormy"?

 

[dbz]

But let's focus on the equations "of Nazareth" == "Nazorean" == "ha-Notzri." How confident can we be about these "equivalences"? There is extra-Biblical mention of a town of Nazareth circa 65 AD, so can we at least lay the non-existence bugaboo to rest?

• Salm, René. "Yeshu ha-Notsri as founder of Christianity—Pt.13: The falsified biography | Mythicist Papers".

[If] John were the originator of the Christian religion, then the prophet’s real name was either Yachanan (“Yaweh is Gracious”) or Yanathan (“Yahweh Gives”). The two names, while etymologically different, were occasionally interchangeable—particularly because the often imaginative and linguistically challenged people who in antiquity took upon themselves to translate/edit/abridge/expand these religious writings were hardly following the formal rules of linguistics when going from one language to another.

Of the two names, Yachanan or Yanathan, separate clues (to be discussed) favor the latter: the prophet’s name translates to “Yahweh Gives”—that is, Jonathan, or simply John. “The Baptist” was an ascription, an appellation bestowed upon the prophet by the congregation that he founded. For readers now familiar with the gnostic water symbolism highlighted often on this website, describing the prophet as a baptist signals that the core doctrine had to do with immersion in gnosis. Originally, then, the resurrection was spiritual, ritually identified with emerging from the water of baptism. (All this will have much to do with the figure of the Samaritan heresiarch Dositheus, to be considered later.)

Aside: We encounter a similar problem with Heb. Notsri yielding → Gk. Nazarene and Nazareth of the gospels. In this case, it was beyond the linguistic capacities of the evangelists to preserve the Semitic tsade (“ts”), which is an unvoiced phoneme and in the natural permutations of language yields the unvoiced “s” and not the voiced (aspirated) “z”: Tsforah→Sepphorah (wife of Moses); Tsarephat→Sarepta (place); Yitshak→Isaac; Tsidon→Sidon, etc. This is one clue that the true heirs of Yeshu ha-Notsri were the Natsuraiia (Mandeans) and the Nasarenes of Epiphanius (Panarion 18), while all the ancient groups and related places that have the “z” sound in their name are bogus (Mk 1:24, Mt 2:23, Acts 24:5, Panarion 29, Nazarenes, Nazoraeans, Nazara, Nazareth, etc).

Per the relationship between Nazareth and Nazorean, the reference to the "sect of the Nazoreans" (τῆς τῶν Ναζωραίων αἱρέσεως) in Acts 24:5 raises the possibility of "Nazorean" originating as a sectarian name and the dual forms of Ναζαρηνός (characteristic of Mark) and Ναζωραῖος parallel the spelling variants Ἐσσηνος and Ἐσσαῖος for the Essenes.[148] It is not until Epiphanius that we get the form Νασαραῖοι [Nasaraíoi (Nazarites)] which refers to a sect that Epiphanius wants to distinguish from the Ναζωραῖοι [Nazoraíoi (Nazarenes)]. According to Epiphanius in his Panarion (29.5.6), the 4th century Jewish-Christian Nazarenes (Ναζωραιοι) were originally Jewish converts of the Apostles.[149] There is also a third sect, the pre-Christian Nasarenes, whose name is more intelligible in Aramaic or Hebrew as Natsarene. René Salm writes, "Like Epiphanius, we should also carefully observe a distinction: the Nazoreans were early Christians (cf. Mt 2:23; Acts 24:5), but the Nasarenes were pre-Christian . . . . I shall use the English spellings 'Natsarene' (rendering the Semitic tsade) and 'Nazorean'." see: Salm, René (30 September 2012). "Mythicists, docetists, Nazoreans". Mythicist Papers.

The author of Mark refers to Jesus from Nazareth (ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ) once, and to Jesus the Nazarene (Ναζαρηνοῦ) four times.[146] Even in the unlikely event that the Markan text's single reference to "Jesus from Nazareth" is original, there is no specific information presented within the text that unambiguously identifies Jesus as a resident of Nazareth rather than just passing through Nazareth en route to the Jordan river.[147] Also if original, "Jesus from Nazareth" is most likely an intertextual allusion to OT geography or a sect—divergent from the Essenes.[note 14] Carrier writes:

[T]he scriptures the [early] Christians were then using predicted three things about the messiah (and we know this, because they say so): that he would be born in Bethlehem, that he would come from Galilee (even though Bethlehem isn’t in Galilee), and that he would be a “Nazorian,” which actually doesn’t mean someone from Nazareth (the word is significantly different, though similar enough to sound almost like it). . . . There is no evidence Jesus was ever imagined to come from Nazareth before the Gospels invented the idea; all by trying to make their invented stories match select scriptures...[151]

 

[Swammerdami]

There was a town in Galilee named "Nazareth." What is its name in Hebrew?

Is there a claim that this town was given a new name at some point to facilitate myth-makers connecting "Ha-Notsri" (the surname with 5 distinct alleged etymologies) to a place-name? If this seems absurd, please forgive me: I'm baffled by all the contradictory claims in this thread with little in the way of "connecting the dots."

 

[dbz]

There was a town in Galilee named "Nazareth." What is its name in Hebrew?

• נצרת​

 

[Jarhyn]

This is an interesting exploration in scholarship.

So, this whole explanation about pogrom, flight, and return from distant climes of specific documented persons from places known to carry beliefs in return to life after death (reincarnation) make so much sense, and interleave well with the Amalgamist interpretation: that Jesus wasn't one person, the belief in "resurrection" originated as a spiritual resurrection belief, and that anyone could attain this resurrection of Jesus into themselves.

This explains why Paul was considered valid, what a "brother" of the Lord is, why Chrestus can also be Jesus, and in some ways why the later Jesuses of the 1st and 2nd century inspired the elevation of polemics in the first place, and why the number of apostles kept growing, and why the resurrection thing came into the mix and became so important.

Edit: even so, obviously, this is a speculation. I'm not going to be like others assigning probabilities but of all the infinite ways it "could have" happened, I find it most likely to be a misunderstanding and/or presentation of reincarnation and associated eastern religious ideas as introduced by one, and others taking up his "spirit" in gnosis, and becoming it.

And indeed, people more commonly claim they are Jesus than any other thing. I'm as much Jesus, by that measure. Then again, so is everyone who attains not just "the rhyme" of radical love but also "the reason", by that model.

As I understand it, this is -- and has always been -- a primary theme of gnostic traditions.

It in fact loses power when one insists the reification of the unkillable idea must happen immediately, of the flesh that died, as in physical resurrection. It is exactly counter to the point of reincarnation via gnosis.

Also, when was tea first introduced to the middle east? Did hebrew have a word for tea in the 1st century BCE?